


Dual Nature

by LynyrdLionheart



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4658124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynyrdLionheart/pseuds/LynyrdLionheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Klaus shouldn't be distracted by the not-quite human friend of his Doppelganger. Too bad she's the first thing to truly interest him in a thousand years.  Caroline shouldn't be nearly as affected by Klaus as she is.  Too bad nobody told the over-sized lizard that lives inside her that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dual Nature

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Klaronicles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klaronicles/gifts).



When he first arrives in town, he can tell the girl is different.

                When he finds out from Maddox that Katerina had tried to turn her, and failed in the attempt – _the woman didn’t hold the pillow over her face long enough to actually smother her, she just passed out_ – Klaus knows without a shadow of a doubt that there is something unique about Caroline Forbes.

                Simply put, Katerina Petrova does not _fail_ when she decides to murder someone.  At least not a high school junior with a reputation for being a bit of an airhead, but eyes that see far more than anyone realizes.

                Like when she looks at him, in her history teacher’s body, and her eyes narrow and…

                He blinks and curses Alaric’s deficient eye sight, because he could _swear_ that was a lick of smoke that curled out of her nostril.

                He finds himself watching her with increasing regularity.  It angers him, because she isn’t the one he’s supposed to be observing.  He’s here for his Doppelganger, and to determine the threat level of the Bennett witch.  He has no time for a perky blonde cheerleader who has shown no signs of being anything other than what she projects to the world…

                Except she _is_.  And he knows she is, though he can’t figure out _what_.

                “Miss Forbes” – he calls to her as she makes to leave, and she raises a brow at the address.  He realizes a second too late that Alaric very likely calls her _Caroline_ , but she hasn’t been part of any of the little war meetings that he has gone to with the Salvatore brothers, and so he had assumed that the teacher wasn’t particularly close to Elena Gilbert’s friend – “would you please stay?”

                She remains in her seat as her classmates empty the room.  Elena shoots him a questioning look as she walks out, accompanied, as always, by the Bennett witch.  When it’s just the two of them left, Klaus rounds the desk, mind whirling quickly for a reason as to _why_ he kept her.

                “Your essay,” he says after a moment, his eye catching on the pile of papers he has yet to truly look at.

                “What about it?” Caroline replies, and Klaus has to bite back a smirk at how her back immediately stiffens.  His little cheerleader, it appears, might be a bit of a perfectionist.

                “It needs improvement,” he replies, simply because he wants to needle her, to see what her reaction is.

                To force her into more of a reaction than she would normally give – because she is _something_ , and it will drive him mad, unless he can figure out _what_.

                “What’s wrong with it?”

                He pulls out the paper with her name carefully typed at the top, and his eyes quickly dart over it, searching for something to nitpick.  It’s difficult; Caroline is very thorough.  But then he sees it – the tiniest of errors.  One that no one would likely pick out; in fact, it’s very likely not her fault at all that the information is false, more likely it’s the fault of the referenced text book.  But still, he slides the paper across the desk and taps the date.

                “Right here.  I hope you do more thorough research in the future.  This didn’t happen for at least another three years.”

                “You backed this up in class!” she growls, her eyes flashing in anger, and Klaus narrows his gaze, because this time he _knows_ he didn’t imagine anything.  That was smoke.  Light, and almost unnoticeable, but very much _there_.

                                His mind whirls.  He has been alive for a thousand years, and somewhere in those thousand years he must have seen a creature like her.

                                But all that crosses his mind is vampires, werewolves and witches… and a hundred old folk tales that never seemed to have any bearing in truth.

                He watches her take a deep breath and close her eyes, releasing her crushing hold on the paper.

                “I’ll find another source,” she says after a moment, pasting on that fake smile she wears so often and getting to her feet.  “Was there anything else I could help you with?”

                “Not at all.”

                “Have a nice day, Mr. Saltzman.”

                She’s still wearing that smile, though it’s looking more pained, as though she’s grinding her teeth together.  And when she leaves, she moves quickly – almost _too_ quickly.

                Curious and curiouser.

                Klaus doesn’t have time for this, not with a witch to kill and a sacrifice on the horizon.

                But perhaps… perhaps he will find a way to _make_ the time.

\---

                Caroline breathes deeply, pressing her back against a tree.  For nearly three weeks, there has been something wrong with Alaric.

                It’s like he’s not… _him_.

                The beast within her growls, demands that she find him, that she tear into him.  Dead men can’t pose a threat, and until it’s dead, whatever is affecting Alaric _is_ a threat.

                A loud crack echoes through the trees, and Caroline pulls away from the tree, carefully pulling her claws from the trunk.  She closes her eyes, and takes long, slow breaths, trying to calm her wildly beating heart.

                When she opens her eyes again, her claws have retracted.  She carefully runs her harmless, human fingers through the wild tangle of her hair, taming it back into the careful waves she had worn to school.

                Shaking her body until her limbs are loose, the monster under careful restraint once more, she makes her way back to the car she parked at the edge of the tree line.  She reaches for the handle of the car door, and then freezes.

                Her senses are on high alert, and she raises her head, closing her eyes, and taking a deep breath.  She takes in the scent of trees – pine and oak and a dozen others – and underneath that, the scent of ice and winter.

                _Vampire_.

                She narrows her eyes, trying to pinpoint the location.  It had been one of the first tricks she had learned, after she hit puberty and it became clear that a gene that had been dormant in the Forbes family for years _hadn’t_ been dormant in her.  With that, came introduction to the supernatural, and in Mystic Falls, that meant vampires and their particular scent. She whirls in place, thinks she has it pinpointed for a moment, but then the presence, and the scent, drift away on the wind.  She growls low, the sound rumbling through her chest, and a tendril of smoke curls out of her nostril.  She opens the door and gets into the car.

                The entire drive home, she keep one eye on rearview mirror.   

\---

                She’s wearing a different necklace.

                It’s perhaps a foolish thing to notice, but every day since he stepped into Alaric’s body and noticed Caroline Forbes, she has worn different pieces of jewelry.  Never once had he seen her wear the same necklace, bracelet, earrings, or even rings.

                And if he wasn’t mistaken, each of those pieces was made of very real, quality gold.

                                It adds another layer to the mystery that is this girl. Smoke and gold, and Klaus remembers stories of his boyhood.  Stories of beasts that kept hoards behind walls of flame.

                                But those were bedtime tales, and Caroline is not a beast.  She is a girl… a pretty, intriguing girl with mysteries that he aches to solve-

                He bites back a scowl, because this isn’t what he should be focused on. Elijah is in town, and his brother’s presence threatens everything he has planned.  He doesn’t have time to waste on some girl who is very probably the foolish cheerleader she appears to be.  Not with the full moon looming and Elijah lurking ever watchful around the doppelganger.

                But still he watches Caroline, notices when her gaze locks on another girl’s necklace.  He keeps one eye on the clock, even as he lectures the class on history.  For twenty minutes, her gaze remains on the gold of the other girl’s necklace, and he can count on one hand the number of times she blinks.

                It’s not until the Bennett witch nudges her, murmuring something, that Caroline’s gaze breaks.

                “Is there something more interesting than my lecture, Miss Bennett?” Klaus asks, his voice cracking across the class and making the dark skinned girl jump.  But Caroline just turns her gaze, and Klaus frowns for a moment, because for a second her pupils appear contracted to lizard-like slits, decidedly inhuman.  But then she blinks, and her eyes are normal again, and she’s giving him a winning smile.

                “Sorry, Mr. Saltzman.  It was just cheerleading.  We’ll keep it to breaks, promise.”

                There’s no excuse for him to keep her after class to try and drag answers out of her this time.  So all he can do is watch her with a clenched jaw as the bell rings and she gathers her books, flanks the doppelganger with the witch as they leave the class.

                Once the class is empty, he walks to the desk Caroline had been sitting at.  In Alaric’s body, he lacks the superior senses of a vampire, and he mentally counts the days until he can be back in his own body.  Without those senses, there is no way for him to tell if her scent would give him a hint to what it is that makes her so other.  He’s left to wonder.

                He curses and kicks the desk and begins to turn towards the class front once more.  But then something catches his eye and he pauses, kneeling down next to the desk.

                Standing as he had been, it had been nearly hidden.  But from this angle, he can see the curve of metal beneath the desk and there, clear as day, the imprint of a hand.  He reaches towards it, and then pulls back with a hiss.

                The black imprint has been _burned_ there, and the heat still radiates.  Klaus looks at his fingertips, can already see a blister beginning to form.

                                She cannot be a beast of legend… but he can also not deny what he is seeing.   _Protecting a hoard behind a wall of flame_ , and here it is, a handprint that would be the exact shape and size of Caroline’s, burned right into metal.

                He looks at the door and wonders if Caroline might perhaps be even more of a danger than Elijah.

\---

                When she gets home, she knows that something isn’t right before she even gets out of the car.  She had been caught up in thoughts of Lindsey’s necklace.  A delicate chain made of real gold, so pure it had practically made her purr.  If it hadn’t been for that, she probably would have noticed something was wrong sooner.  But now she mutters a curse and contemplates her options.

                She could put the car in reverse and leave again.  But then the mysterious vampire would remain a mystery… and the nature of the beast was both covetous and curious.  Caroline wants answers.

                As soon as she steps out, she’s hit by the scent of winter and ice seconds before a dark blur attacks.

                But Caroline is a monster herself, and she dodges the blur and makes her own attack. Her legs lock around the neck of a dark haired man, and adjusting her weight, she brings him to the ground, rolling as she hits the ground and coming to her feet at the same time as her attacker.

                “Impressive,” says the man.  He’s dressed in a carefully tailored suit, which he carefully straightens.  Caroline remains tense for a moment longer, but when the man makes no move to attack, she carefully relaxes her muscles, but she keeps her gaze locked on him.  She can go for over an hour without blinking; she had timed it once, newly into her powers and curious as to the nature of the monster she had become.

                “Who are you?” she asks him.  Her gaze sharpens, so that she can see the ruffle of wind through his short hair, the snagged thread in the bottom of his suit jacket.  Not visible yet to humans, it will unravel soon, and she wonders if he’ll replace the whole suit when it does.  He seems like the type that would.

                He cocks his head, surveying her closely.  She knows what he’ll be seeing; eyes more lizard than human, but it’s a side effect of utilizing her improved vision, and there’s no way that he doesn’t realize she something _other_ , not after her display of acrobatics against a vampire whose scent is so pure that he must be old; far older than the Salvatore brothers that both sniff around Elena – vampires that still carry hints of humanity in their scent.

                There is no humanity left in this vampire’s scent; she’s never encountered that, and she wonders how old that makes him.

                “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I was rather rude.  My name is Elijah Mikaelson.”

                He pauses after that, as if expecting her to react, but Caroline merely raises a brow and waits for him to continue.  He frowns and runs his hands down his suit jacket.

                “I was under the impression you were close with Elena Gilbert,” he says at last.  “And as such would be… familiar with me.”

                “What Elena gets up to his her business,” Caroline replies.  She steps reaches into her car, pulling out her school bag and purse.  “If she needs my help, all she has to do is ask.  Otherwise, her life is her own.”

                She keeps her gaze on him, still unblinking, as she makes her way up the steps to the porch.  She turns her back to open the door, and then freezes when she feels Elijah’s presence at her back.

                “And if I said that her business is going to get her killed?  What would you say then, Miss Forbes?”

\---

                _She will be sacrificed on my brother’s altar if we do nothing.  Of course, it_ is _her life, is it not?_

Caroline growls low in her throat, Elijah’s words still echoing in her thoughts.  She pretends to check her hair in the mirror on her locker door, but instead she is watching Elena and Stefan.  They’re wrapped up in each other, and now that she’s looking, she can see the worry in both of their expressions.

                Elena could very well die… and none of them had told her.

                _Because you’ve been so very honest._

Okay, so maybe not. But _her_ secret wasn’t that she was going to be freaking _sacrificed_.

                There was a difference between “virgin on the altar” and “dragon.”

                Just thinking the word makes her pause for a moment.  It’s always been _the beast_ or _the monster_.  Neither Liz or Bill had ever called her what she truly was – _dragon_ – and so she had always found the word to be somewhat terrifying.

                But now she had to acknowledge it.  Because according to Elijah, his brother, Klaus, was going to kill Elena.  And if they were going to stop him, then she needed to embrace the darkest parts of her nature.

                                Not that Elijah knows the darkest parts of her nature, of course.  Not really.  He may have suspicions having observed enough, but he had never said the word, and she had never offered it.  He had simply seen someone powerful enough to be an ally, and she had allowed him to tell her what her best _freaking_ friend hadn’t.

                The hallway has emptied while she’s been thinking, and Caroline shakes her head.  She straightens the golden chain around her neck.  When she had bought it, Bonnie had told her the quartz stone on the chain had magical properties, but all Caroline had wanted was the golden chain, its scent almost making her close her eyes in pleasure.  She fiddles with the stone as she closes the door of her locker, and then freezes.

                In her distraction, she had missed it… and hadn’t she been so foolish to?  Because this scent is just as old, just as _inhuman_ , as Elijah’s.

                “Interesting necklace.”

                The voice is accented and unfamiliar, but something about the cadence is familiar.  As soon as she lays eyes on the man – curly blonde hair and blue eyes, and dimples that are far too attractive for a man that, if all the stories are true, is pure evil – she recognizes him.

                The presence in Alaric.

                “Klaus,” she greets, setting her bag on the floor and taking careful steps away, judging the distance between them.  If he’s as fast as Elijah, then she won’t be able to cross the distance quickly enough to surprise him. Within her, the dragon perks up and takes notice.  His presence within Elijah had been threatening, but now he’s so much… _more_ , and -

                                She focuses on Klaus, ignoring the dragon clawing against her skin.  She will not allow the beast to control her, to distract her.

                “Caroline.  I’ve been wanting to officially introduce myself… you’ve met Elijah, I presume?”

                                “He may have had one or two things to say.”

                                They pace around each other slowly, neither of them blinking.

                                “You intrigued me from the start.  A thousand years, Caroline… do you know how difficult it is to surprise a man after a thousand years?  Yet you have.  Never have I met a creature like you.”

                                “ _Like me_?” she raises an amused brow.  “Building me up in your mind, Klaus?  I’d say I’m flattered, but I have a feeling drawing your attention isn’t something I want to do.”

                                The dragon growls within her at that.  It very much _does_ want his attention.  It wants him to stroke along its scales, and Caroline can’t help but imagine his hands, with painter’s fingers, running along her body, and it makes her shiver.  His eyes spark with interest, as though he can sense the battle within her, and she bites back the beast and those emotions that it stirs.

                                Klaus is the _bad guy_.  Even if the beast can’t recognize that, the girl certainly _does_.

                                “We both know that denials are useless now, Caroline” - Klaus paces closer slowly, and Caroline feels panic begin to rise, because the desire to move closer, to let him _touch_ , is growing stronger - “what do you look like beneath the facade, _dragon_?”

                She says nothing, instead turning her concentration within.  Panic is riding her now, panic that Klaus _knows_ , panic that the dragon, the beast that has ever been so paranoid, doesn’t seem to _care_.  She knows she won’t get the jump on him, his gaze watches her far too closely, but she doesn’t need to surprise him with her body.

                The body is hardly the only physical weapon a dragon has.

                Fire burns as it comes up, and she doesn’t pretend to be human when she opens her mouth, unleashing the inferno.  Klaus’ eyes widen and he lets out a yelled curse as he dodges.  He’s not entirely successful, and the scent of burned skin fills the hall as the heat sets off the sprinklers.

                For a second, their eyes meet across the hall.  Caroline’s soaked hair clings to her skin, and she can feel the water weakening her flames.

                Without a word, she moves, running to a window and jumping through.  No one else has come to observe the inhuman activity, not yet, and she doubts Klaus will carry tales.

                But while she had scented a threat while he was in Alaric, in person his effect is far more unsettling.

                The beast growls, but it’s not at Klaus.

                It’s irritation is directed at _Caroline_.

                Because something in Klaus sparked the beast’s attention.  And for nearly two decades, a creature that had spoken to her only in growls and huffs, had seemed, for a single moment, to actually _speak_.

                _Mate_.

                And hell no, if the monster that lives in her body thinks that Klaus _belongs_ to them.  That was so not happening.

                The beast chafes.

                Caroline let out a growl and speeds up her pace.  If she has to, she will run the dragon into submission.

                Because Klaus is not her _fucking mate_.

                                At the word, _mate_ , the dragon lets out what she can only describe as a purr, and Caroline stumbles, clutching a tree.  Beneath her palm, the wood sparks with flame, a testament to the separation between girl and dragon, leaving her powers unsettled.

                                She was so screwed.

\---

                When she flees, his first instinct is to follow.

                The sting of healing flesh makes him pause and think about his actions instead.  He should be angry that she attacked him with the flame – part of him _is_ angry.  But another part, the part that can recall boyhood stories of the great beast of legend is in _awe_.

                She is a dragon.

                The awe is slowly replaced by calculation, because she is a beast with which he is unfamiliar, and she is close to the enemy, to Elena and her Salvatores.  And that makes him dangerous.

                It’s with that thought in mind that he approaches his brother.

                “You want our family.”

                Klaus thinks at first that Elijah might actually attack him, the look of anger in his eyes is so fierce.

                “The family you killed? _Yes_.”

                “Then perhaps you should listen.  Because I never killed them.”

\---

                She knows there is something not right when she meets Elijah to discuss plans about taking own Klaus.  The dragon perks up, and all it takes is one look at Elijah and a whiff of the other scent in the air, and Caroline turns to flee.

                Klaus is there, bringing her up short.

                “You cut me off rather abruptly earlier, Love,” he says, his smile falsely charming, belying the cold look in his eyes.  She snarls at him, and the dragon within her growls, reminding her that this is their _mate_.  But Caroline doesn’t care about that, because this is the man that would kill her best friend.  The dragon claws at her skin, wants to tear free, and a shiver wracks her body as she fights the monster within for control.

                “I apologize for this Miss Forbes, but he made me an excellent offer.”

                It’s Elijah’s move that ruins her already tenuous hold on the dragon.  He moves far too quickly for the girl to respond to, going in for the snapped neck, and so the monster takes over, instinct rushing through her body, ruling her actions.

                The beast roars, victorious, and the girl is pushed back in its favor.

                She’s aware of Klaus cursing, and Elijah scrambling away from her, and when the world comes into focus once more, she’s feet above them, scales along the length of her body glinting under the moonlight. 

                Klaus is saying something, but the dragon merely snorts, smoke curling out of her nostrils.  She turns her gaze to Elijah, whose eyes are calculating, and with another snort, she lashes out with her tail.  It hits him in the stomach, sends him flying into a tree, and she hears his neck snap loudly.  Giving a pleased nod that he’ll leave her be for the next moments, she turns once more to Klaus.

                He is so _small_ , this mate of hers.  She leans down, long snout just inches from him.  He’s still speaking, which makes her chuff.  Because her mate also speaks too much. Mates are for rutting and petting, doesn’t he know this?

                The dragon wants him to pet her.

                She nudges him with her nose, but she must use too much force, because it makes him stumble back and fall onto his rear.  The dragon isn’t pleased by that.  She knows that her mate is strong for his form, but she is very big like this, and changing forms right now means she’ll once more be chained by the will of the girl.

                The girl is too stubborn. She won’t have fun with their mate, won’t let him pet them like the dragon wants.

                Still leaning down, she sniffs at him.  He smells dangerous, and the dragon approves of that.  She’s dangerous herself, after all.  A meek mate wouldn’t suit her.  At first, he tenses, but when her mate realizes that she’s not going to attack him, he slowly gets to his feet.

                “You’re quite beautiful, aren’t you?” he asks, and the dragon preens under the praise.  Her form is not as large as many of the versions of her kind the mortals create, but she is long and sleek and built for speed.  She’ll keep herself and her mate well fed and cared for.  She knows he might not like that, he’s a predator as well, but he’s still very small, so he’ll have to get used to being cared for.

                This time, when she nudges him with her nose, he strokes it, and the dragon’s eyes drift shut in pleasure at the attention.  He continues to speak words of praise, and Caroline nearly falls asleep under the ministrations.

                But then his words change, and it’s those changes that draw her attention.

                “- we’ll take care of the Doppelganger-”

                The Doppelganger.  That’s Elena, and Elena is part of the dragon’s hoard.  She likes all of the sparklies that the girl has collected, but she has also collected her people, and the dragon likes them as well.  Bonnie, who smells like magic and spice, and the wolf boy, and Matt with the pretty eyes.

                And Elena.

                They are _hers_ , just like Klaus is _hers_ , and they are not allowed to hurt each other.

                The dragon pulls back and bares her teeth at her mate, who scowls.

                “I will not allow you to interfere in my plans, Love.”

                The dragon snorts and shakes her head, because this mate of hers is arrogant.  Arrogant and dangerous, and it pleases her, but that doesn’t mean she can let him think he’s in charge.

                At least not until he’s grown.  She wonders if it’s possible for someone his age to grow.  She would like for him to be bigger.  But according to thoughts of the girl, that won’t be able to happen, just like Elena and Bonnie and Wolf Boy and Matt cannot grow anymore, so the dragon must always be careful and stay hidden around them.

                But Klaus knows about her, so there’s no excuse for him to think he can control her.

                He’s still raging about his plans when the dragon reaches out and snaps his neck.  She dislikes the way the light leaves his eyes, but unlike the others in her hoard, the dragon knows that Klaus will survive.  He’s a vampire, after all.

                So she just nuzzles him, and then carefully picks him up in her claws.

                She takes to the air, weaving a spell of invisibility around herself that’s as instinctual as the hunt as she goes.

                She will take her mate to safety, and then she will explain to him that he will have to leave the rest of her hoard alone.  She will make her mate understand.

                They are all hers.

\---

                Klaus comes slowly back into consciousness, and at first he’s utterly confused.

                Then he remembers a dragon’s claw sending him into darkness.

                He flashes to his feet and looks around. His shirt is gone, which makes him scowl, but he has more important matters to worry on than his state of dress. He recognizes these caves from his boyhood, their safe haven from wolves, and even a thousand years after he last stepped foot in one, the route to the exist is still ingrained in his mind.

                “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

                He freezes, and turns slowly towards the voice.  Caroline is there, watching him.  She’s no longer in the form of the great dragon, but her blonde hair is wild around her face, and there’s a hint of gold in her blue eyes that warns that while she might be in a woman’s form, the beast lurks just beneath the surface.

                She is mesmerizing, he thinks, his gaze refusing to be torn from her.  Half girl, half wild creature, and her entire body seems tense, ready to pounce.

                It takes a moment for him to realize that she’s wearing his shirt.

                “Why am I here?” he asks her.

                “The dragon wants you here,” Caroline replies, her fingers digging into the dirt floor of the tunnel. 

                “Just the dragon?” he asks in return.

                “What do you think?” she shoots back.

                “I think, that if it’s just the dragon, then you’ll let me walk out of here.”

                He turns his back to her, only to come up short when he finds that she’s now standing there.  The shirt is all she wears, and he has to swallow, because it only hits her mid-thigh, leaving the long length of her legs completely unveiled, and bagging a bit at the collar, so that it falls down over one shoulder.

                “You want to hurt Elena,” she says, her hands curling into fists, and when the metallic tang of blood hits his nose, he realizes that her claws are pricking skin, skin that he swears dances with gold an red shadows, the same color as her scales had been.  “We can’t allow it.”

                The tenseness that seemed to rule her relaxes as she says that – both sides of her nature in utter agreement on this one thing.

                “And how do you think you’ll stop me, Caroline?”

                “Maybe I’ll eat you.”

                The reply makes Klaus pause.  The power in her other form… yes, as a dragon, the threat is legitimate.  And no one would ever suspect that the town’s resident beauty queen was a beast capable of feasting on a man, so no suspicion would fall on her.

                Except that he remembers how the dragon nuzzled against him, how it all but _purred_ under his hand, and his eyes narrow as he contemplates her.

                “I don’t think you will,” he stated. 

                “Oh?  And what do you know about me?”

                He steps closer to her, and Caroline takes a step back, despite her rebellious gaze.  So Klaus takes another step, and another, following her as she retreats until her back hits the wall, and he can lean down, until their noses are very nearly touching.

                “I know that you enjoy having your muzzle stroked.  And that you purr much like a kitten while being petted.  I wonder, Caroline, does the girl pet as well?”

                Her throat works in silence, and he maintains the hairbreadth distance between them carefully, waiting to see what her response will be.

                He isn’t disappointed, when she reaches up and grasps his hair, pulling him in for a kiss, filled with tongues and clashing teeth and _hunger_.  He pushes his body against hers, enjoying the way she seems to mold against him, fitting perfectly.

                He moves them, and she just clings tighter to him when the wall of the cave is no longer there to support her weight.  When they’re in the right position, he pulls back from her.  Her eyes are glazed with passion, glittering gold just as they had as a dragon, and he admires them for a moment, before stroking her cheek with his fingers.

                “I’m very sorry, Love.”

                Confusion, and then a brief flare of realization, before he snaps her neck and lets her fall to the floor of the cave.

                They’re not done yet, but he really does need to start putting plans into place for the sacrifice.

\---

                He’s gone from the caves for exactly three hours when he suddenly finds himself airborne from the site of the sacrifice.  Greta and Maddox’s faces show shock for a moment, and then they are too small for him to distinguish expression anymore.

                “Put me down, Caroline.”

                The dragon’s response is to huff, and the there’s a snap, and Klaus’ world goes black once more.

\---

                It continues like this for the three weeks leading up to the sacrifice.

                Caroline doesn’t know why Klaus doesn’t simply kill her.  As far as she can tell, vampires have no mates, and this vampire is old and powerful.

                She sits on a rock outside the caves, dressed in his shirt, when she sees Elijah walk out from the trees.  It’s the first time she’s seen him since his attempt to help Klaus take her out.  He pauses in his steps, when he sees her sitting there in just the shirt.  A brow is raised when Klaus exits the cave naked from the waist up.

                “Do I wish to know what goes on between you?” Elijah asks after a moment.

                “A game, brother.  But one that we will have cease while I perform my sacrifice.”

                “I won’t let you kill Elena,” Caroline says, her voice quiet, but her words echo in the sudden silence between brothers.

                “Caroline, while I do find you to be beautiful and interesting, please don’t believe I won’t kill you.”

                _He still thinks he is in control_.

                The dragons huffs angrily in her mind, because to the beast, Klaus is so very _small_.  And she knows the beast wants to know why she continues this game, why she doesn’t simply show Klaus that she is the more powerful, thus she must be the one to keep them safe.

                _He isn’t mine_.

                It’s a weak argument, because the way his kisses weaken her knees says otherwise.  But never say that Caroline Forbes isn’t stubborn until the very bitter end, and she knows it annoys the dragon, who claws to be let out.

                If Caroline will not show their mate how it is, the beast will.

                “We both know how this argument goes, after all.  It always ends the same-”

                It’s always been the dragon that snapped his neck.  Maybe that’s why Klaus doesn’t expect it, her sudden move and the jerk of his spin.  Caroline watches as he falls to the ground, before looking at Elijah, who is just as startled as she imagined Klaus had been.

                “Miss Forbes-”

                “The dragon wants him,” Caroline says, crossing her arms and watching Klaus’ older brother closely.  “And… God help me, but I think I might too.  But he needs to learn _manners_.”

                That Elijah doesn’t argue says he’s probably thought much the same himself.

                “So we’re going to take him away from here.  He’ll be very angry, when he wakes up and realizes that he’s too far away from Mystic Falls to perform the sacrifice.”

                “Caroline, my brother is not a man to be crossed.  If you do this, he will kill you.”

                Caroline considers that.  She considers walking away, and going to Elena and running away.  She could hide their tracks, fly them across the world.

                Elena is part of her hoard, and Caroline always protects her hoard.

                But Klaus is her _mate_ , and mates are even more precious than hoard.  She kneels down next to him and strokes his hair out of his face.

                “He might try, but he’ll learn.  We’ll protect him,” she says finally, and for the first time since she realized what she was, she feels at peace with the dragon.  It already knows where they will take him, her inquisitive nature meaning that both girl and dragon had spent many hours learning all the places of the world a hoard could be hidden.  “He is ours.”

                “Miss-”

                “I won’t hurt you, because you’re his brother, and that means you’re part of my hoard as well.  And the rest of your family” – Caroline doesn’t know who they are, just that Klaus will have to release them.  It doesn’t sit well with the dragon, that part of its hoard is hidden from her – “but you shouldn’t interfere.  I might hurt you accidentally.”

                Elijah doesn’t seem to know what to say, and Caroline doesn’t care to hear it anyway.  Ever since the she took the dragon’s form, the beast’s way of thinking has been melding more and more with her own, and it seems so simple, this conclusion.  To take Klaus somewhere to be alone and teach him how it must be.

                The dragon chuffs down at Elijah, thinking that her mate’s brother is also dangerous, but also very small.  She really wishes she could make them grow.

                Then she carefully picks up Klaus’ limp body, the most precious of her entire hoard, and takes to the air.

                She wonders how angry he will be when he wakes up.

                Maybe she should have a deer ready for him when he does.  Fresh meat always makes the dragon happier.

 


End file.
